New 701c owner

[Peter Lewis <pele@wolfenet.com>]

Hello All:

I recently purchased my first laptop, or what I guess some call a
sub-notebook, a ThinkPad 701C.

The seller said he bought it new about a year ago. Here's the ad I
responded to:

IBM 701c
24meg Ram
360meg HD
10.5" Active Matrix Color
14.4k modem/fax/voice (v.terbo 19.2k)
Xircom Performance II Series 10BT pcmcia

The seller was originally asking $1,400, and I got it for $1,100. The
seller installed Win95. He provided software -- about 50 to 60 mb worth --
but it's all on a Ditto drive disk, and I don't have an Iomega zip drive.

The ThinkPad appears to be in good shape, though I lack some of the
original documentation. I have visited
<http://www.pc.ibm.com/products/c1692.html>
but that has limited info. I'm looking for more of a manual that tells, for
example, about what the "fn" keys do. 

I joined this list as a resource, to reach out to those might be able to
point me in another online direction for further documentation/info, to ask
for help when I inevitably run into problems/questions, and for when I have
something to contribute to help others.

Here's an issue I'm confronting now: In order to be able to restore the O/S
in case the registry gets corrupted, and to load other software, I'm
considering buying an external CD-Rom drive, probably a parallel port job
to keep costs down. Any suggestions on good buys and/or brands that or more
or less compatible with the 701C? Is there a better alternative to what I'm
considering?

Any general maintenance tips?

Thanks.
	
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 Peter Lewis
 pele@wolfenet.com